This invention relates to methods of conducting promotional contests, and to beverage or like containers having utility in such contests. More particularly, the invention is concerned with promotional contests in which the winners are purchasers or other recipients of articles (e.g., beverage cans) that are randomly commingled with seemingly identical articles but are differentiated therefrom by concealed indicia. In a specific sense, the invention is directed to methods of conducting these contests with electronic article surveillance systems, and especially to such methods wherein the articles are containers of beverages or the like.
Currently there is keen interest among can makers and fillers in features, for cans, that promote product sales and brand recognition. Among known techniques for promoting a product are contests in which one or a small number of “winning” packages with special but externally undetectable identifying features are randomly seeded among large batches of ordinary packages of the product as arrayed for sale at stores or other vending facilities. Contest advertising attracts attention to the brand, and aims to induce consumers to buy packages of the promoted product brand (rather than another brand) in the hope of obtaining a winning package which can be redeemed for a prize. Other contest-associated features, aimed at the five senses, are desirable to enhance interest in the contest and the product.
In this regard, the sense of hearing has been relatively little exploited. Promotions for certain consumable canned products have employed devices, contained in winning cans, that produce audible messages when the can is opened, advising the consumer that the can is a winner. These cans are seeded in batches of ordinary cans, from which they cannot be distinguished by visual inspection or heft. Substantial modifications of the can, however, are required to conceal the audio generating element. Moreover, the audio is triggered on opening the can, which may occur in private, so while there may be an enjoyable effect for the winning consumer, there is no way to exploit the publicity of the win on the spot unless the winning can is opened in public. Even in the latter situation, the audio volume achievable with the necessarily small device fitting inside the can limits the range over which the winning announcement will be heard.
Electronic article surveillance (EAS) systems are well known for security purposes such as theft prevention in retail stores. Such systems employ portals (typically adjacent store exits, so as to be passed by customers leaving a store) that create rf electromagnetic fields and detect and signal perturbations of the field. Field-disturbing elements in the form of passive rf resonant microcircuits are affixed to the articles of merchandise that are to be protected. Passage of an article bearing one of these microcircuits (in a non-disabled condition) through the field of a portal detectably disturbs the field, provided that the resonant frequency of the microcircuit and the field frequency are appropriately selected. The portal, sensing the disturbance, produces an audible and/or visible alarm signal indicative of unauthorized removal of an article from the store. To permit authorized removal of articles (i.e., by persons who have purchased them) without setting off an alarm, the microcircuits may be removed or disabled in situ on the articles by store personnel during the purchase transaction. As an alternative to rf fields and microcircuits, magnetic fields and magnetic field-disturbing elements may be used.
Several patents (e.g. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,861,809; 5,754,110; 4,673,923; and 4,835,524, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by this reference) describe the design and manufacture of such rf tags and overall EAS anti-theft systems based on these. EAS systems are commercially available for anti-theft applications.
Considerations of cost, convenience and feasibility have precluded use of EAS systems for various types of inexpensive consumer goods, including cans of beverages and the like. Beverage containers, for example, are commonly sold in vending machines or in prepackaged groups such as six-packs; these sales modes are incompatible with the provision, detection and/or disabling of rf microcircuits on individual cans.